Hello! My name is Mocadium, and my idea for a game is a time-management strategy game with a WIP title called "Date Night". PLEASE LET ME KNOW SOME COOL NAMES AND I MIGHT USE ONE OF THEM (Im not very good with names...).

• Engine: GameMaker: Studio 1.4
• Art Program: Pyxel Edit
• Music Program: Fl Studio

All assets (Artwork, Tilesets, Music etc.) are and will be my own (including the banners you see above)!

I started the jam slightly later than usual, so I spent the first day planning how to interpret the theme, and drawing some drafts as to what I want the game to look like! I did no coding or anything, havent even created the project on GM:Studio yet!

My game (so far) is based in the most popular date night restaurant in town! You play as the waiter, and have to make sure the night goes smoothly, and everyone who comes in goes out smiling! The customers will request things, and you need to make sure they get what they want, so they can impress their date!

Here is my first draft:

I can change the room around however I want, but thats the first concept!

My next goals are:

• More furniture
• START THE PROJECT ON GM:STUDIO
• Draw some people (ugh.)
• Get some movement working

Let me know what you think so far

Before I start coding it all, I just wanted to do an update on the most important bit of art, people! Im not an artist, and I hate drawing people more than anything else, but I've made a template that all the people will be based off of.

I started with designing a silhouette that I liked:

I decided on the third one I did, which seemed to be the most normal looking one. Then I went and coloured it in, and made the animations for walking!

Then came the first task: Create The Player!

Next I will:

• Start coding movement
• Make more generic customers that I can reuse
• Coding collisions

I will do another update for Day 2 with all new screenshots of my progress on these goals, hopefully inside GM:Studio!

Today I've started the project on GM:Studio!

For the first time, I looked into "Motion Planning", and the built-in functions inside GameMaker:Studio! I ended up using something called "mp_potential_step", which moves an object towards a goal, an avoiding the obstacles along the way. Unfortunately, this takes a lot of the direct control away from me code-wise, but the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, and I will just work around the motion planning!

After implementing the sprites I made yesterday, and working around the motion planning to get the sprites to display correctly, I have this:

Im surprised how well the motion planning works! Its a bit buggy sometimes, but its so much better than coding it myself! After this great success so far, next I've got to:

• Make some customers
• FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET THE CUSTOMERS TO WORK
• ...
• Profit.

Getting the customers to actually work in the game will take me most of the time, as its the biggest mechanic, so the progress from here will be a bit slower, but I guarantee I will do some fun stuff in between so that the devlogs are still interesting!

Let me know your thoughts on the game so far!

This is looking great! Can't wait to see some movement! 

This looks super nice for a first game! And the pixel people are hella cute.

You are making a lot of progress, well done!! Maybe you can use motion planning for your other games 😂 I'm excited to see all of your customers when you've finished them! 

Sorry for the lack of devlog yesterday, I was busy with non-gamedev things. So I have nothing really to show right now, but to make up for it, I am going to do an update later on today with new stuff, so keep an eye out for my update in a few hours!

The only thing I can show you thats new is some new customer images:

Im going to do most of my prototyping with these two, so if you see a lot of the next few screenshots with these two, its not always going to be like that, and yes, there will be gay couples too! (Its the 21st century...)

So anyway, stay tuned for the update later with hopefully some progress on the customers actually doing something!

Dont forget to leave a comment on what you think so far, and give me some motivation!

A lot of behind the scenes stuff today! I've knuckled down and started working on the gameplay cycle.

For now the steps are as follows:

• Take customers to tables
• Take their orders
• Take them their food
• Fulfill their requests
• Take their dishes

And repeat!

Right now, it dosent sound very fun to be honest... I need to come up with a puzzle element to it to make it more difficult! Please help me with some suggestions!

Right now you can take the customers to their table, and take their order!

I know it doesn't look like much, but believe me, its a lot of code to make that work! 

Again, if you'd like to see anything in my code, or would like to know how something works, let me know! Also a few more things to note:

• New sitting sprites! (I don't know why I didn't think of doing them until today...)
• The task system in the bottom right all working (although the icons are a bit small and seem so unimportant)
• New Timer Icon! (Will add the mood ones from the last update later)

Sorry for the lack of exciting stuff, once I've gotten through the hard programming parts, it'll be smooth sailing from there, and there will be more exciting things going on after that!

After a lot a coding, I've finally got a basic gameplay cycle! There's still a lot more to go, but I'll probably talk more about that as I do it!

Anyway, here is a (very very long) GIF showing a typical cycle of gameplay so far:

I know I still have a lot to go, but getting through that main cycle is a big achievement for me! I'm super proud of myself :)

Gotta push on though! Other things to note:

• Took the bin out, haven't actually found a good use for it yet...
• The timer in the top right is working! This will contribute to your score.
• The plates have colours?!? This is just placeholder for real food!
• New sink! As you can see, this is where you leave the dishes!
• Made a way to spawn the customers at certain times, ideal for having control over the difficulty!

I've got a whole lot of new goals I want to complete next:

• Adding money into the game! Your money is your total score.
• Sounds! Games always feel like more of a game when there are cool sounds.
• Drawing Food!
• A Musical Band?
• Cool as heck Main Menu!
• Adding moods into the game

Now, If I can complete all of that before the jam ends, I will be super happy, but I have big plans for this game, so Im going to work hard over the next few days, so prepared to be bombarded with updates with these goals hopefully being completed!

Please let me know your ideas/opinions of the game so far!

In my opinion, THE BIGGEST UPDATE YET!

Lots of stuff to share from over the past two days!

Firstly, notice the title change.... I officially have a name for the game! The name, as you know, is "Date Night Diner"!

So, with that, I present to you....... The Main Menu!

Im super proud of this one, heavily based on old 50's diner signs!

The sign even has a little animation!

Secondly, I got through some of my goals from the other day:

• Sound FX
• A music band or something maybe i dont know....
• Main Menu/Other menus
• Drawing More Customers!
• Adding in the code for the flower pot
• ADDING IN SOME KIND OF CONVERSATION!

Now as for the conversation bit, its just too hard to figure out the logistics of it, so I've decided to scrap that , and just leave the game in the form its in, fun or not!

Also, I will be doing a full day of sound design/music one of the few days just before the end of the jam, as I don't need too much time for that!

All the code for the flowerpot is done also!

Sometimes, the couple will want a rose to give to their partners! How sweet!

Thirdly, I've finally got around to drawing more customers into the game, as you can also see in the above GIF!

The way the code works, is the couples are randomly formed, so any combination of men and women are joined up for the date, meaning there is no bias of sexuality!

(The process of importing those customers into the game was soooooo tedious, just on a side-note)

Fourth-ly (??),  Ive made the fire have a red alarming glow over the screen, to make sure you know its there!

(That was a way larger file size for that GIF than i was expecting, by the way!)

Lastly, thanks to your suggestions for food, I now have a couple more foods!

I dont need lots of food selections, but it's nice to have a few more!

Lastly for real, I've been working on a level system, and a level completing system, here is the GUI for the level completion so far:

Thank you for following my game so far, let me know what you think of it!

You have made so much progress! The end looks within reach for sure now! 

Okay, just another small update:

Got a level select screen started. Now i need your opinions! What to change/add! I've got the functionality all going, its just sooo......uninspiring... HELP!!

Also, that was by far the easiest level select screen ever to make, I can now change the stats/requirements for each level through 1 script, and also change the spawning of the customers using GameMaker:Studio's Timeline feature, which I have never used before, its so easy!

Of course, I actually need to figure out the actual difficulty of the levels, right now they are all identical as you can see, but it wont take long to get a right difficulty!

Now I've got some really far fetched goals that if I really knuckle down, I know I can complete by the end of the jam, but it wont be easy, now bear with me,

I want to:

• Create a save system (I know!!)
• Create an options menu (Might leave out)
• Make the customers walk out if they are too grumpy?
• Decorate the game!

I know, a lot right? If I can get all the support from everyone reading this, then I know ill have enough motivation to do it! So don't be shy to tell me what you think of the game, it really does help!

Wish me luck!

I love the level select, simple and it fits in well with the rest of your game! Keep up the good work! 

No gamedev today, as it was my fiancee's birthday today!! So I spent the day with her, and I have a few hours tonight to work on a few more of my goals I set out to achieve before the jam ends!

I did however, complete one of my goals before I fell asleep last night!

I have a working save system! It was super easy to implement, because right now only need to save your score for each level, which is done by saving a list of your scores in one big string, then reading that string back out when you start the game!

You can now see your scores in the level select menu:

Also got the moving between levels from one to another working fine!

Next I might start on a simple tutorial, fingers crossed that wont take long, I need all the time I can get!

I cant do the options menu until I get some music/sound, so I better start on that soon as well!! Its all getting a little bit stressful, but still fun! Im gonna need all the luck I can get!!

Okay, there is LESS THAN A DAY LEFT and I'm super stressing out, I have a lot I need done before the end of the jam, but surprisingly I'm still confident!

Heres what I've done since the other day:

First, Ive made a tutorial, I dont have time to take a GIF of it, so ill leave you to play through it in a day's time!

Second, I have a splash screen for the game!

Third, New cursors!

Fourth, Options Menu, with working sliders and checkboxes!

Okay, so I need these things to be done so I can release the game in less than a day's time:

• MUSIC AND SOUND (This should be easy)
• Actually make the levels the right difficulty in terms of spawning rate
• More options? Tell me what other options I might need in this game!

That's it I think! Then I will have actually finished a game fully for once! Wow, wont speak too soon though, I have a lot to do, so wish me luck!

I'm done!

You can find the project at https://mocadium.itch.io/date-night-diner and play it for yourself!

On the devlog side of it, I ended up getting all my goals completed!

• Got all of the sound effects!
• Composed a little loop for the music!
• Made the levels and the difficulty all right (at least, as far as I know)
• Added more GUI bits like "Back" buttons etc.
• Added sounds and fastforwarding to my Splash Screens!

Im super proud of myself, and I hope that everyone like the game, even though its a little bit short! This is the first time I've actually "finished" a game, and am pretty happy with the outcome of it! Let me know in the comments of either this devlog, or the game page of what you think of the game! Thank you everyone for following this devlog and I hope you enjoy playing my submission!